The Impact of Non-Citizens on Political Representation in the House of Representatives
https://cis.org/Camarota/Impact-NonCitizens-Political-Representation-House-Representatives
By Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler on February 13, 2020
At present, the apportionment of House seats to each state and the drawing of district lines are based on total population — not citizenship.1 The nation's 22 million non-citizens, slightly less than half of whom are here illegally, are not evenly distributed across congressional districts.2 As a result, there are many districts in which a large share of the population is not made up of U.S. citizens. It typically requires many more votes to win in districts comprised largely of citizens than in districts with large non-citizen populations. This raises important questions about the principle of "one person one vote" because the inclusion of non-citizens in apportionment and redistricting means that the number of citizens and voters varies enormously by district. This situation also has a partisan dimension, as the presence of non-citizens strongly correlates with support for Democratic candidates.